In Propria Persona
by UE
Summary: Wolf meets Weasel. A collection of connected ANBU drabbles relating Kakashi and Itachi. [Incomplete]
1. I

Beginning Notes: Inspired by Luc Court. "In propria persona" means "in one's own person or character." It should also be noted that "persona" is Latin for "mask."

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**In Propria Persona**

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ANBU masks, Kakashi learned, were carved from the wood of the cypress. It was standard protocol to rip off all the outer bark first, flesh forcibly stripped and peeled until nothing but the desired marrow remained, raw and malleable enough for shaping. Well-filed adzes would coax the wood-chunks into contours of a generic human face, as local Aphananthe leaves sandpapered vigorously to even out the rougher surfaces. An application of whetstone powder and wax would then come next, preparing the way for an intermediate layer of soybean oil, while four coats of ANBU's signature white paint served as the final finish.

They usually assumed shell-like molds at this point, lumps of smooth nacre across eyeless, unbroken planes.

The eyes would come later, though. As would everything else.

Village manufacturers often dumped their products into storage boxes and sent them along to ANBU headquarters soon after, whereupon they'd be gathered in a nearby shed, stacked in pyramided dust piles like beachside collectibles, straining for the sea. There, they would wait for weeks on end, in the hopes of liberty under a pretext of the organization's necessity.

As with all shinobi paraphernalia, purpose equated with utility. Every fresh wave of recruitment meant scores of naked faces, bold and bare invitations for what Konoha legislated as an affront to the essentiality of concealment. Assignments to members were distributed randomly, with further modifications made to the exterior in accordance to whoever obliged a new representation. Size and structure, alignment of facial features, stroke patterns.

Colors.

Identity was to be a contingent condition. Who the wearer would be determined everything in the end. Masks were just masks, after all. And commodities, Kakashi learned, were not meant to have choices.

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	2. II

Beginning Notes: In case it's not obvious, any and all future tense changes will be on purpose.

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**In Propria Persona**

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Tattoo ceremonies were once held in the basement chambers, between scroll-lined walls and the confidential bookkeeping. Inductees would be instructed to arrive donned in loose apparel; barley tea was served warm in small ceramic cups. Witnesses would arrange themselves into half-moons, arching their eyes as the privilege of ANBU and Konoha joined together at a senbon's piercing tip.

It never lasted more than ten seconds. A twinkle of pain shot through muscle fibers and charka veins. Blood streams and biochemical clots against caustics. But the resounding clapping afterward would feed the new badge for hours, tingling, pulsing. Orchestrations of sharp adrenal delight.

The entire process was a tradition to be indulged seminally by Shodaime, who was rumored to have even performed the rites of initiation himself in order to ensure the knowledge of who comprised his force. Knowledge in those days had the predisposition to translate into power, after all.

At least, that was what Itachi would have liked to believe.

By the time he had enlisted, paperwork had grown to become a sufficient substitute for corporeal attendance. No one of significance had been present when the heated senbon seared into his shoulder, whittling his skin and coiling the brand of Leaf in its stead. The incumbent Hokage and village council had been dissuaded from handling such trivialities now that cross-country wars loomed by the hour. There were allocation of resources to worry about, the appeasement of clan families, jounin training camps.

Missing-nin.

In the decade following the defeat of Kyuubi, nominal peace pacts were established in lieu of the expansion of the east and west countries. Politics had mounted the language of power, and nothing spoke louder than the money a country grossed from its mission work. It was money that represented the number of bodies able to carry out missions ranked B or above, and it was the number of advertised and accomplished high-ranking missions that was Fire Country's primary leverage over all her neighbors. Recruiting ANBU en masse yielded a greater edge. Whether or not shinobi as inexperienced as chuunin actually did qualify was the least of the daimyos' concerns. A six year old was a statistic to be weighted equally with those ten years his senior, provided that he could properly wield a kunai or spew chakra-flames.

Itachi would have liked to believe that passage into ANBU symbolized entrance into some elite coterie. As if the spiraled leaf etched permanently into his flesh was supposed to hail the height of heights, its elliptic roundness tempting comparisons to his own superior Sharingan eyes. Burning red when hot, stone-black when cold. Village standards were now toted on his shoulder as on his hitai-ate; Uchiha ambitions were sewn onto his civilian garments, daily reminders of to whom he owed his existence. He would have liked to believe he wasn't just one of many, would have liked to boast in the growth that beckoned to him now that he was in the force. Bloodline legacy. Genius. Prodigy. He had even expected to find his potential between mark and mask limitless and hungry, running ever deep beneath the underneath.

Which was why it had come to him as no surprise when he discovered that it did.

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	3. III

Beginning Notes: Though not explicit, there are random references to Obito, Rin, and even Itachi in this one.

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**In Propria Persona**

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The engraver was gripping a mask no larger than an udon bowl, feeling along its front in a cursory test for durability. It felt kunai-cold when suddenly pressed against Kakashi's face, all the necessary measurements made quickly before it was then swiped away. Kakashi's pupil contracted just in time for him to see it gouged into without hesitation, the shavings scattering across the floor like discarded fingernails, the knife chipping away and twisting, until a pair of unseeing eyes settled on the mask's surface in a poorer echo of his own.

Blind socketless eyes raging on a face that was blind.

With a flick of the wrist, the engraver brushed off excess wood-dust, then jutted out his chin. "Which animal?" He asked, twirling the knife between his fingers. Waiting.

"Dog" meant a crescent smile with a shortened jaw, but was a birthright reserved exclusively for those borne Inuzuka. The village liked to operate within the parameters of clan families and Kakashi knew this all too well. To carry on his christened name was probably expected of him, but seeing as how the nobility of Hatake had died once his father's gut was self-sliced, he wondered idly if it was taboo to have old ghosts revived.

"Wolf," he replied.

The engraver stopped twirling his knife.

"Did you say 'Wolf'?"

Kakashi watched more of the wood perish in silence. Eggshell pieces flew off for the price of the nose; two deep punctures gave way to underside nostrils. Further down, a wavy lip-line was sculpted for what Kakashi believed was solely for decorative purposes, a mere depression in the wood that cast the mask into a lamenting leer. The engraver withheld his knife briefly, if only to study his handiwork, and then resumed the rest of his attack. A hill of cheek was made flatter. The forehead's center, sharper. Distinct promotions for a lupine curvature.

The mask was fitted onto Kakashi's face once more before finally being shoved into his hand. It felt like touching a porcelain skull.

"Take it to the room on the left," the engraver instructed.

The room on the left permeated with the stink of formaldehyde and turpentine. A colorist approached him immediately.

"Are you the Copy Ninja?"

Kakashi nodded.

"This way."

She directed him to a table with supplies, many of which Kakashi recognized. Soiled cotton swabs. Small jars that were filled, but with paint instead of ointment. Senbon needles. Gauze. Next to them, several ink tablets were lined up together like tiny graves, some wet, some dry, running in a full gamut of pigments.

The colorist leaned forward, expectant, and Kakashi handed over the mask.

"What is this?" Lengthy fingers cradled the blunt snout. "Dog?"

"Wolf," Kakashi answered.

The colorist sat down, one hand entangled by the mask, the other free to float over her paintbrushes. She drew a midsize one from among the collection before pausing, as if trying to remember the design for Wolf, then allowed the tip to be lowered into one of the jars, emerging but a second later, baptized entirely in black.

The paint was lapped up greedily by the wood, drying almost instantly upon contact. Twin plumes sprouted on either side, emblems to the mask as whiskers were for wolves. More was smeared over the mouth, while streaks around the hole-eyes improved the cavernous guise. For a moment, Kakashi was even convinced he could see its teeth, the black depth creeping against the expanse of white, the daylight slowly surrendering into night.

At quarter-moon, the Wolf was complete.

Kakashi extended his hand, but to his surprise, the colorist dismissed the act.

Instead, she traded in the used paintbrush for a fresh one, a thinner one, and with a darting eye, Kakashi followed its path into the belly of a jar. It was soon lifted out, hairs matted bloody by the paint, dripping, and everything that had been pitted black the first time was resung again in red. Though tracing the eyes required an instance of replenishment, the mouth began and ended in a single scarlet stroke. The red commanded. It made the face look wounded, and after blinking, aflame. Kakashi stared at the massacre wordlessly, and privately awaited explanation.

The colorist tilted her head and looked at him. He wondered if she could read his thoughts.

"Twice as much red would mean you were an Uchiha," she said softly.

Then she returned to him the mask.

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End file.
